MODEL OF A CALCULATING MACHINE
JEVONS, William Stanley.
‘Preliminary account of certain logical inventions’, communicated March 19th, 1866 [in: Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool. During the fifty-fifth session, 1865-66. No. XX]. London, Longman …, Liverpool, Marples, 1867.
London, Longman …, Liverpool, Marples, 1867.
8vo, pp. ii, 173-232; a clean copy, in recent wrappers; stamp of the Geologists’ Association, London.
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‘Preliminary account of certain logical inventions’, communicated March 19th, 1866 [in: Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool. During the fifty-fifth session, 1865-66. No. XX]. London, Longman …, Liverpool, Marples, 1867.
First edition of the account of Jevons’ communication on the ‘logical abacus’ and the ‘logical machine’, a precursor of his later ‘logical piano’. Jevons had experimented with different forms of teaching aids before creating his logical piano. On this occasion, early in his career, Jevons (pp. 177-179) organized a practical demonstration and set forth the purpose and functions of his newly devised calculating and logical machine– a comparatively simple device consisting of a number of marked blocks of wood that could be manipulated on a series of shelves to produce the solution to a logical problem. He considers his work within the tradition of ‘mechanical logic’, from Aristotle to Babbage
Inoue and White 66; not in Letters and journal.
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CRUIKSHANK, Percy. P. Cruikshank’s Comic Almanack for 1864, containing numerous Illustrations in Oil Colour Printing, useful Information, etc., etc. To be continued annually.
A very rare colour-printed almanac by the nephew of George Cruikshank, apparently the first of a short series. The calendar pages are each accompanied by some ‘Notes of the Month’, and a jest at the foot, and commemorate recent events such as the burning of the Titian gallery at Blenheim, the Indian Mutiny, the introduction of new bankruptcy laws, and the death of Prince Albert. The illustrated verses include ‘An Appeal against the Income Tax’, and ‘Term Commences’, in which a man is squeezed by lawyers; and the other illustrations include some comic ‘Fashions for 1864’ and some offensive jokes on the US Civil War and Emancipation.
PRESENTATION COPY TO J.W.F. ROWE FISHER, Irving.
Mathematical investigations in the theory of value and prices.
Presentation copy, inscribed ‘To Mr. J.W.L. [sic] Rowe with the compliments of Irving Fisher, March, 1927’, of the second edition in book form, a photo-engraved reprint of Fisher’s doctoral thesis, first published in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 1892. This contribution received, on appearance, a glowing review from Edgeworth, who ventured to ‘predict to Dr. Fisher the degree of immortality which belongs to one who has deepened the foundations of the pure theory of Economics’ (The Economic Journal, Mar., 1893, Vol. 3, No. 9 p. 112).